Sunday, December 23, 2007

2 AM in the morning and Googled the city my Family belongs to and ended up finding some interesting articles about Kayasthas: On Wikipedia and, A List of famous Kayasthas.Its like searching the ancestry on ancestors.com. Few things earlier I had no clue about:1. Srivastavas are originally from Kashmir near Shrivaas region of Srinagar.2. There existed a Kayastha dynasty and they even once ruled the region we belong to. Hmm! Hmm! 3. Historic cities like Chittor and Chitrakoot were established by Kayasthas.4. Pandya Kingdom of South India were established by Kayasthas to all the way to Madurai.5. They ruled Ayodhya before the Raghvanshies (Shree Rama).6. That Kayastha are Brahmins and Kshatriya together for whatever that means.7. That they were not only traditionally Scribes but warriors too (Saxenas - Shaksena who once ruled Kabul, Afghanistan).

A few famous ones:1. Dr. Rajendra Prasad - First President of India2. Lal Bahadur Shastri - Second Prime Minister of India3. Bal Thackeray4. Munshi Premchand - One of the best Novelist of Hindi Literature5. Mahadevi Verma - One of the best Poetess of Hindi Literature6. JC Bose - Father of Radio Science7. Amitabh Bachchan and,8. Subash Chandra Bose

I don't know why am I blogging about it but a few minutes donated to some history. Enough of history, Stop! And look at the future :)

10 comments:

Kayasths settled in Madras City mostly employd with Nawabs of Arcot around 1600 Streets in Triplicane area are named after Kayastha. Caligraphic work had been done on the dome of the Big Mosque in Triplicane by Makhan Lal SaxenaD.B.SAXENAsaxenadb@yahoo.com

Kayasthas started as a social class of Brahmins who took up writing and administration as profession. They were later joined in by several Kshatriyas castes, and from a social class, they evolved into a separate caste, probably because of rising squirmishes with a section of Brahmins who were envious of their growing power.

I think there is a connection betwee:- the mythological story about Parushram killing all the Kshatriays,- and the conversion of Ksatriyas into castes like Kayasthas and even Khatris. What probably happened was that as Brahmins became more and more ambitious to grab social power, they devised a plot to remove the Kshatriya caste altogether, and so, they sought refuge in new emerging classes/ castes. The Brahmins did it again, about 1000 years ago in Bengal, when they rendered every other caste, except the Brahmins (even some Brahmin castes) into the Sudra category. That includes Bengali Kayasthas, Kshatriyas and Vaisyas. The Kayasthas are the highest in the non-Brahmin caste in Bengal, almost at par with Brahmin, and there traditionally are even inter-marriages between some sections of Brahmins and Kayasthas.- You will probably be surprised that there are no original Kshatriyas left today, in their original form. The Rajputs are a much later migration from central Asia, and were probably merged into the erstwhile Kshatriya caste or were specially appointed so, after the Brahmins, with their social power, 'annihilated' the origtinal Kshatriyas.

Also, the Ambastha Kayasthas of Northern and Central Bihar have descended from King Ambhi (who ruled large parts of Punjab, Kashmir, etc.) who joined hands with Alexander the Great.

Srivastavas are the descendants of King Lalityaditya Muktipada of Kashmir (a Brahmin King who married his daughter to a Kayastha, who in any case were originally Brahmins) whose kingdom extended from Turkistan in the West to Tibet in the east and Orissa in the south. Then followed a Kayastha dynasty in Kashmir. The name Srivastava is supposed to refer to Srinagar.